Research and learning exchange between The University of Edinburgh and a local NGO, Salaam Baalak Trust, who work with street children in Delhi.

Tag: women’s rights

One of our plans for our time in Delhi is initiating a “Women’s Talk”. Salaam Baalak Trust already runs a City Walk focusing on the lives of the street children, but the lives and experiences of women and girls on the streets can be very different from those of the men and boys. We want to illustrate these specific “women’s issues” with a walk complementary to the City Walk, highlighting the specific vulnerabilities of women. Unfortunately, even the streets of central Delhi are not safe enough for a walk led by girls. Hopefully one day they will be but for now we will convey the stories of these women and girls through a talk instead of a walk.

We want the talk to be as powerful as the existing City Walk and we felt the best medium was film. The first step was learning about film making. An ex- University of Edinburgh student Shiva, living in Delhi, volunteered to run a workshop, teaching a group of young people from SBT about filming, editing and creating a narrative. We hope that getting the girls, as well as the boys, to use the immersive medium of film will convey both the feeling of a walk, but also crystallise their experience of the chaotic and dangerous streets in the minds of those who attend the talk.

Learning how to make a movie

We discussed and planned the stories we wanted to tell and the locations we wanted to show. We decided on areas around Connaught Place, a place where at every step you are confronted by tiny children selling balloons and roses or begging while holding even tinier children in their arms.

The girls we work with know some of these children living on the street, as some are girls who used to live with them in the children’s home before they returned to their families. We wanted to film where they live, where they wash, the temples that serve them meals and speak to them about their experiences and opinions.

Having decided what to film the next step was creating the film for our Woman’s Talk, Shiva accompanied us into the streets to do the filming while the girls led the interviews.

It is likely that a full four in ten Indian women do not have access to disposable sanitary towels. This is the case for the girls who live on the streets and are more focused on food, water, and shelter.

Mothers teach their daughters to use cloths. When there is nothing else to use, they resort to dirty cloths or even old newspaper. It is not just safe clean sanitary products that are needed, but it is access to safe and private toilets, too. They also need clean water for washing, a safe place to wash, and places to dry reusable products.

Reusable products or cloths must be washed and dried properly.

When they are dried in a dark corner, hidden away, out of sight and out of sunlight, this increases the chance of infection. Infection causes irritation, embarrassment, and further complications. When safe drying areas aren’t available, proper information and medical support are unlikely. Illness can emerge and last for years.
One of the most important ways to improve menstrual hygiene is to break the taboo that leads to women hiding their periods in dark corners. Lack of information and silence on the matter acts to fuel the stigma. The main barrier is a lack of education and especially education for men.
Girls in the care of the SBT children’s homes get good education about puberty, periods and sex. For the children on the street, their health and sex education is more likely to come from word of mouth or from watching porn on mobile phones. This lack of information can lead to dangerous attitudes towards women and unhealthy practices when it comes to menstruation.
Educating men and boys around menstrual health is important. But education of boys around sexual health and safe practices may be even more important.

A comprehensive “life skills” curriculum is taught in schools in India, and it covers many aspects of sex and sexuality. As with menstrual health those children not enrolled in school miss out.

Nevertheless, the legacy of sexual inequality is obvious. Public toilets for men are plentiful and free in Delhi. There are far fewer for women – and in all cases they must pay to use them. Condoms are cheaper here than the most basic sanitary products.
We have initiated a workshop on hygiene and sexual health for girls currently living on the street, run by older girls who live in SBT homes. The workshops are animated and provide a friendly reunion – many of these girls remember each other.

So far the workshops have been run by girls but we will expand these to include workshops run by young men, for young men, this weekend.

Today Adam, Rachel and I (Alice) had a meeting with three young women who are currently in, or had recently graduated from the care of Salaam Balaak Trust’s (SBT) shelter homes. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss a potential ‘Women’s Walk of Delhi’ to complement the existing City Walks run by SBT. We wanted to use the women’s walk to raise awareness about women’s issues in Delhi and the workshops that the three young women are currently facilitating to help educate younger girls living on the street about issues such as growing up, periods, hygiene and consent. These are really important issues for young people living on the street where it can be difficult to access both the knowledge and products necessary to stay safe and well. Ayesha*, one of the young women, told us some of the questions she had been asked when she facilitated the first workshop last Friday. Questions such as:

“Why does our skin get so itchy?”
“Sometimes we get pains during our periods. Why?”

The young women facilitating the workshop already held an impressive array of knowledge and were easily able to answer these questions. In response to “why does our skin get itchy?”, Ayesha responded with “because you need to wash more”. Simple answer right?

Not so.

Children and young people living on the streets have extremely limited access to safe washing facilities. They also have poor access to sanitary products when they have their periods. Luckily, the young women we met today knew of an affordable and usable solution – they told us about re-usable pads which can be washed and used time and again for up to three years. We worked out the costs and it turns out to be around £35 to get these products for 50 girls.

Three of the workshop leaders

Now this is where our ‘Women’s Walk’ really shines. We can use the money made through the walk to buy sanitary products and perhaps even set some aside to help build safe cleaning facilities for young people living on the street.

Or so we thought.

After having discussed the idea with as many SBT staff as we could, it became clear that there was a real concern for the safety of the young women leading the walking tours. It was generally felt that it wouldn’t be safe for the young women, who may be subject to unwanted attention, harassment, and even sexual harassment. Having heard these concerns, Adam, Rachel and I talked among ourselves and agreed that there was absolutely no way we would risk the safety and well-being of anyone on the team for the project. We felt deeply frustrated that the very issues we want to raise awareness about were encroaching on the feasibility of the project.

We couldn’t settle for that.

The issue of safety highlighted the importance of this initiative even more. If women are not even safe to talk and walk around familiar local neighbourhoods, urgent societal change is needed. So we’ve been thinking of alternative solutions and have a couple of exciting options. Right now, I’m going to leave you hanging – I don’t want to announce our plans while they remain half-baked. We haven’t even spoken to the young women on the team yet and it feels important to do that first. So let me leave you with a question instead: If you were to ask these young women about their experiences of growing up in Delhi from girlhood, what would you ask?

We really value your thoughts so please get involved in the conversation and comment below! If you would like to donate to the project you can do so here.